Hope 2019 is treating you all well so far! In my world, it’s fun to see the year stretching out in front of me with so much opportunity and so many events on the calendar. I’m also personally grateful to embrace a year where I’m a bit more settled than I was in 2018!

I am wary of the fact that I have a LOT to say to all of you (brevity has never been my curse…) and unfortunately email is my only mechanism at the moment. I hope you’ll bear with me as you begin and continue to get peppered with info from me – I’ll do my best to use good subject headings (I do have a library degree, after all!) so things don’t get missed by people who need to see them.

Team Liaison

Many thanks to Terry Driscoll and Kim Wolff, we’re happy to announce that we’ve got a full slate of “Team Liasions” for every level of our program. The Liaison is a person or family who can coordinate with the Head Coach and the parents so that when things come up, the coaches can focus on coaching, and the parents feel equipped with good information and have a great experience. Our hope is for the liaisons to support a "Team Vibe" where parents feel like they're part of a smaller subset within the whole club. On the flip side, if issues arise, we hope that the Team Liaisons may be an avenue for families to communicate back to us what their experiences have been so we can address concerns quickly and efficiently. Liaisons listed below!

College Camp

We’re always looking for ways to utilize our campus and our amazing facilities in the off season. This year we’re rolling out a summer “college camp” here at WVA that is open to any student-athlete (not just WVA, and not even just WVBBTS), looking for an intensive one-week test prep camp which will also be combined with fun, challenging, intensive off-snow workouts: workouts will be appropriate for committed athletes training for sport!

We’ve partnered with Knower Academics, a test prep center based in Plymouth, for the academic component. Knower instructors will lead two sessions daily of intensive test prep Monday-Thursday, and then on Friday each student will have a one-hour individual session to develop a summer study program and plan which takes into account their baseline test performance and their targets.

This camp is geared toward rising 10th, 11th and 12th grade students. Rising 9th graders may find the testing strategies useful, but should be prepared for content that may be above their current level. Sign-up process coming soon for this, but please feel free to let us know if you’re interested. Also feel free to forward to other families who might be interested and aren’t BBTS folks!

Midweek training

Thanks to everyone for checking in on my email earlier this week about midweek training. We’ve got two great options: Tuesdays and Thursdays at Bradford, and midweek days (5 pack) up here at Waterville with our academy program. A few clarifications: please notify us of your plans by Tuesday, and your point person for notification will be the corollary academy coach (U12/U14 – Jason Guilbert; U16 – Rich Smith)

Finally, I got to watch all our U12s and U14s throw it down on home snow during the Cardillo race. It’s always inspiring to see the little (and medium!) sized dudes compete as hard as they can, and I loved the energy and enthusiasm coming from all the kids. I’m so proud of every kid for giving it their best, and thanks to all the parents for keeping it positive and excited in the finish! Let’s keep it going through 2019!

Thank you all for your help, and please say hi to me when you see me around!

WE HAVE EXTENDED THE SYNC STORE! If you would like to buy more items the store will be open for one more week, till 1/13. There are limited quantities and sizes of some items. Orders will be received 3-4 weeks after the store is closed.Provided is the link to the online store. The password for the Organizations Members is BBTS

If you would like to donate items to the raffle, such as a vacation home, sports tickets, or donations from your business, please contact Director of Communications Maggie McGovern - mmcgovern@wvbbts.org

Join us for the 4th Annual Clay Soper Memorial Weekend Championship. In memory of BBTS Weekend racer Clay Soper. Clay tragically passed away in 2015, and since then his parents have set up the Clay Soper Memorial Fund in order to educate young people on the what they do not know about party culture. This is a more than a points race!! This is a competitive race weekend, filled with fun and friends.

In conjunction with the race on the 19th there will be the 4th Annual Sat Nite Celebration! Join us at the Waterville Valley Golf Club from 5-8 P.M., for a night of drinks, dinner, and fun. There will be tubing and broom ball for the kids, along with an outdoor fire pit! All BBTS members and friends of Clay are welcome to join! Pay at the door! Please RSVP with the number of people to clayspoermemorialfund@gmail.com

We've got WVA and BBTS athletes scattered across the globe at early season competitions right now, so please check out our Instagram channels for photos and updates: @watervillevalley.bbts, @watervillevalleyacademy, and @wvafreeski and tag us in your photos!